"Dynamic Duo" - March 27, 2011 SBUMC Sermon

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I found this story that reinforces the need for all of us to become more familiar with the Bible. I have asked two of our members to help me by reading certain Scripture. A bride asked the cake decorator to inscribe the words from I John 4:18 on the wedding cake, and the words are… Unfortunately, the cake decorator was not familiar with the Bible and instead wrote the words from the Gospel of John 4:18 on the cake…

So, I urge all of you to study the Holy Scriptures. How many of you remember the campaign that featured this phrase, "Just say no." ? And what was it mostly about? That's right, drugs and alcohol, etc. It's a great sound bite and sounds so simple. It fits our attention spans very well. The problem is that just saying no has not been a real and effective answer to those issues. At best it is a tiny first step.

Saying "No" is a negative response, and I believe that it is more difficult to move forward in life on negative energy than it is on positive energy. In order for people to be able to say no to drugs and crime and no to injustice and bigotry and no to destroying the environment and other issues, I believe there needs to be a positive energy force to get people moving.

Concern and compassion are good things, but they are not enough, from the church or anyone else. I believe the church need to offer a resounding YES in order to empower people to be able to say NO. The church needs to offer the YES from the strongest and everlasting source there is: the love of Christ and the wonder-working power of the Holy Spirit. There is no greater Dynamic Duo for anyone looking to move forward into a new life… a new way of living.

The encounter Jesus had with the "woman at the well" in Samaria makes me think of the missionizing spirit that we need in today's world. Jesus drove the religious establishment crazy because of many of the things he did. This story is a prime example. Here he is talking to a woman, in public, a Samaritan whom Jews considered unclean and she was of questionable moral character. That's 3 strikes against Jesus, as far as the Jews were concerned.

Jesus has a conversation with her, some scholars see some "playfulness" in this encounter. Not only does He tell her all about her life, he goes on to reveal to her who he really is…the Truth of his identity. He then entrusts her to proclaim to her entire village the Good News of his coming.

As Jesus talks with her, he addresses her as woman…the Greek word used here, gune, doesn't simply mean 'woman'…it is like saying "special lady". It is a term of endearment, in fact it is the same word he used to address his mother at the wedding in Cana and on the Cross. So, here we have a woman who is basically the village outcaste, does not really associate with the other women in the village, has been married 5 times and is currently living with a man in an unwed state. And Jesus calls her "special lady." AMAZING. She is considered the first evangelist, as she told her whole village about him…she is also the first person Jesus revealed himself to as the Messiah. He offered her living water… and he offers it to all of us.

The church needs to resurrect that missionary spirit that Jesus entrusted to that Samaritan woman. In the postmodern world of the 21st century, we need to find new modes of expression which may involve new roles for the church. Satellites and micro chips intimately bind together cultures, peoples and economic systems like never before. I read something by Frederick Buechner, pastor and theologian. He compares the world to a gigantic spider web: If you touch it anywhere, you set the whole thing trembling. As we move around this world, as we act with kindness or with indifference or hostility toward the people we meet, we are setting a great spider web a trembling. The life that we touch, for good or ill, will touch another life, and that in turn another… until who knows when the trembling will stop or in what far place and time our touch will be felt. Our lives are linked…no man or woman is an island. (The Hungering Dark).

Living in the web of interconnectedness should break down the artificial barriers of class, race, nation, gender, etc. All these things separate us from one another. Part of opening the church to new ways of expression and new roles lies in its ability to recognize the face of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in new and myriad forms. We must understand that the Christian church is going to look different in an Asian culture or African or Samaritan. Please do not leave here today frightened by this next statement, but the Christian church may also need to step outside its safe, comfortable, cultural cocoon we find ourselves in, especially in America.

A lot of studies have been done and survey's taken, and they all conclude that younger people…those people we do NOT see in our churches today, generally speaking, are Spiritual seekers… they are religious. They may be just "outside our doors, panting for that "Living Water"…but they need it to be poured out to them in different containers, ones that they can grasp !

The church needs to find new ways to introduce the Dynamic Duo: the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN